Blackfish SQL Developer's Guide Overview

Abstract: Overview of the Blackfish SQL database and link to the download of the Blackfish SQL Developer's Guide.

Blackfish™ SQL Developer's Guide Overview

This document provides a brief overview of Blackfish SQL and the Blackfish SQL API for Windows.
For updates to this document, see the CodeGear Developer Network
Blackfish SQL Developer's Guide Overview.

Blackfish SQL

Blackfish SQL is a high-performance, small-footprint, transactional database.
Blackfish SQL was originally implemented as an all-Java database called JDataStore,
which is now called Blackfish SQL for Java.
Blackfish SQL was ported from Java to C#.
The C# implementation is called Blackfish SQL for Windows and is supported in RAD Studio 2007.

High performance and scalability for demanding online transaction processing
(OLTP) and decision support system (DSS) applications

Delphi, C#, and VB.NET stored procedures and triggers for Windows

Java-stored procedures and triggers

Zero-administration, single assembly or single-jar deployment

Database incremental backup and failover

Blackfish SQL DataStore

Blackfish SQL
is the name of the product, its tools, and of the
file format. Within RAD STudio 2007, there are assemblies that includes a DataStore class.

Compatibility Between Windows and Java

Blackfish SQL for Windows and Blackfish SQL for Java are compatible, though some restrictions apply.
The database file format is binary-compatible between the two.
The database clients and servers are interchangeable.
Windows clients can connect to Java servers and Java clients can connect to Windows servers.
However, because the Blackfish SQL for Windows implementation is more recent,
some Blackfish SQL for Java features are not yet supported for the Windows version.

Blackfish SQL API for Windows

The Blackfish SQL API may be used in Delphi and C++ programs with the DBXClient DBX4 driver.
.NET applications can use the API with the ADO.NET Provider.
In RAD Studio the API is in the Borland.Data.DataStore and Borland.Data.MetaData namespaces.

The administrative capabilities listed below are not yet supported in
DataExplorer for Blackfish SQL for Windows.
Use SQL commands or Blackfish SQL built-in DB_ADMIN stored procedures to complete these tasks.
For details see the Blackfish SQL Developer's Guide
at http://cc.codegear.com/Item/24980.

Create/alter autoincrement and max inline properties for columns

Create secondary indexes

Create, alter, drop users and roles

Create, alter, drop database mirrors

Database encryption

Database backup

Administration and Utility Functions Available From SQL

Two classes are available, DB_ADMIN and DB_UTIL.
These methods can be called from SQL using the CALL statement.
They can be called without creating a METHOD alias, because the Blackfish SQL dialect
recognizes methods in DB_ADMIN as built-in methods.

DB_ADMIN class

DB_ADMIN is a group of stored procedures for performing a variety of database administration tasks.
Some of the capabilities include:

Configuring automatic failover and incremental backup

Viewing and altering database configurations

Backing up databases (explicit)

Encrypting databases

Mirror management

DB_UTIL class

DB_UTIL is a set of SQL stored procedures for performing numeric, string and date/time operations
on data stored in database tables. These procedures include such functions as:

Mathematical functions, such as trigonometric, arithmetic, and random

String manipulation functions

Date and time functions

ADO.NET

Blackfish SQL includes an ADO.NET implementation.
This is similar to the AdoDbx Client, which is also an ADO.NET implementation.